In bed with Havoc

CHAPTER TWELVE

AVA

I jolted out to my peaceful slumber to the sound of pounding boots.

Not one set, multiple, moving fast and in different directions as well as voices talking into radios in hurried voices.

Something was wrong and no one had thought it right to get me.

So much for “I'm protecting you” bullshit.

I was out of bed before I was fully awake, pulling on the nearest clothes I could find before ripping my door open and the hallway outside looked like a war zone with guards moving in pairs, earpieces in, hands near their holsters and nobody looked at me, not even the one posted outside my door who was usually annoyingly attentive.

"Hey," I said and he didn't stop moving. "What's happening?"

"Please return to your room ma'am."

"That's not an answer."

But he was already gone leaving me standing in the doorway as I watched two more guards pass at the end of the corridor. The hairs on the back of my neck stood because since I've been here this has been an impenetrable fortress so this sort of commotion meant really bad news and I was the only one who didn't know what was going on.

Hurriedly, I left my room in search of anyone who could tell me what the f**k was actually going on.

I found Gabe on the staircase.

He was moving down with a radio in one hand and a tablet in the other so I stepped in front of his path causing him to stop because he had no choice.

"Tell me what's happening."

"Ms. Sinclair, I need you to go back to your room."

"And I need you to tell me what's going on in the building I'm currently trapped in so I'll ask again."

He looked at me and I could see him measuring something behind his eyes then he said, "Ryder will explain," the simple side stepped me. I turned and watched him go and I was two seconds from following him when I heard the footsteps behind me and turned around.

And I stopped.

Ryder was coming down the hall and I had seen him in suits and in dark jeans and shirtless in the garage but I had not seen him like this, tactical vest over his shirt, radio clipped to his shoulder, something holstered at his side, jaw set and eyes already scanning the hallway past me before he even reached me and something happened in my stomach that I immediately resented and buried.

Not no you horny dog.

He looked at me then said, "Come with me," and kept walking.

"I'm not going anywhere until someone tells me—"

"Ava." He stopped, turned and looked at me directly. This time his voice wasn't cold, it was quieter and more serious and it was that more than anything that made me follow him.

He took me down two corridors and through a door I hadn't noticed before then into a room I didn't know existed and it was small, no windows, a single overhead light, two chairs and a table and nothing else. The moment I walked in I felt the walls come closer making me immediately turn around..

"No."

"It's the safest interior room on this floor."

"I don't care, I'm not sitting in a box with no windows and no information while your people run around with guns."

"The estate is on lockdown," he said as he stepped inside, pulling the door shut behind him and I heard the lock engage, making me stare at him in betrayal. "Someone probed our perimeter last night. Hacked an outer camera. So we're sweeping the grounds now."

Shit.

I hated that he was right and I hated that I understood exactly what it meant but I wasn't going to stand in a windowless room and say nothing so I crossed my arms and looked at him.

"How did they find me?"

He didn't answer but he moved to stand with his back against the door, arms crossed and looked at the wall above my head which was the exact kind of non-answer that made me want to put something through a wall.

"Ryder." I stepped closer. "How did Vargas find this location?"

"We're looking into it."

"That's not what I asked." I got in his face and he finally looked at me with his jaw was tight and his eyes were doing that guarded careful thing they did when he was working very hard to give nothing away. "Did someone on your team sell us out?"

A pause. "Not yet."

"Not yet," I repeated. "What does that mean?"

"It means I have a suspicion and I'm working on confirming it and until I do I'm not putting it out in the open."

"But you think there's a mole."

"I think there's a possibility."

"And you're keeping me in a room with no windows and no exit even though I hate it."

"I'm keeping you in the safest room in the building while my team does their job," he said, voice even and I hated how he was treating me like a child throwing a tantrum so I turned away and started moving because standing still in a space this small with him this close was doing things to my nerves that had nothing to do with the lockdown so I needed to pace.

The room was barely big enough for it.

I went four steps one way and turned and four steps back and turned again and he watched me from the door in silence.

On my third pass I caught the edge of the chair leg with my foot and stumbled forward and his hand shot out and caught my waist before I hit the table and the contact was sudden and warm making us go completely still.

Neither of us moved for a second that felt much longer than a second and his hand was at my waist and my hand had gone to his forearm automatically and I could feel the tension in his grip then he let go and stepped back while I straightened and turned to face him.

"Don't do that," I said and my voice came out soft.

"You were going to fall."

"Don't do that," I said again then I looked at him directly and he looked back but I could see something working behind his eyes. "Don't catch me and then let go like touching me is something you regret in real time. You're five years too late for that performance."

He said nothing.

But his hands dropped to his sides and I watched them close into fists.

Good.

I turned away because looking at him was not helping anything. We stood on opposite sides of the small room, the silence returned and it was worse than before, heavier and filled with our toxic past.

We stayed that way until Gabe’s voice came in through the coms giving the all clear that it wasn't an active breach.

Ryder’s eyes locked on mine then he looks away, pushing off the door and unlocking it. I walked out first without looking back at him. Fresh air away from him was what I needed so I kept walking.

The hallway was quieter now as the guards were standing down. I walked back toward my wing and I was almost at the staircase when I felt eyes on me making me glance sideways.

It was one of the younger guards, maybe twenty five, and he was watching me with an expression that wasn't professional at all and when my eyes met his he didn't look away immediately, he just looked at me with an open and somewhat sympathetic look on his face and then gave me a small nod like he understood something.

Weird.

I filed it away and kept walking.